This large retailer has more than 200 locations across the U.S. – mainly in the southeastern states. They have over 40 years of history in a competitive retail sector with thousands of brands sold in their stores direct to consumers. Their annual revenue is in the hundreds of millions, but margins are thin and their price sensitivity for network and network security products is naturally very tight as a result.
The client was unhappy with their current network solution – Velo service under a Windstream logo (at the time Windstream used a VeloCloud backbone). Windstream had pushed through a high-pressure renewal a couple of years earlier, but the change management issues with Windstream and Velo became too much for the client by 2021. They were experiencing problems with application control, optimization, reporting capabilities and visibility into their environment. Tickets needed to be opened with Windstream, then they would reach out to Velo as part of an arduous process to troubleshoot time sensitive network issues.
The customer’s IT team is young (mostly folks in their 20s and 30s) and receptive to modern network and network security solutions. The Velo/Windstream solution was too cumbersome for change management and stopped them from getting things done quickly.
Aryaka made enough of a positive impression in an initial lunch meeting to be given a proof-of-concept opportunity at select branch locations. The client picked 3-4 of their most problematic locations for us to deploy a test run of our SD-WAN solution with WAN optimization and the way we connect into multi-cloud environments.
“ I asked my IT team to pound the internet to find anything negative about Aryaka and they couldn’t find anything.“
– Director IT for this customer
We deployed very fast during our proof-of-concept opportunity and demonstrated tremendous upside in cloud connectivity and how quickly we can move and manage change.
The customer had a tight budget with US only sites, and Aryaka designed the perfect solution to solve the customer’s business needs within budget for both last mile and core services. We implemented ANAPs to create an SD-WAN environment, 8×8 UCaaS for cloud connectivity and transport, Azure IaaS connectivity.
Aryaka’s competitive advantage included our cloud connectivity options, redundancy of network components (ANAP -> POP), ease of change management (global orchestration) and deployment speed to market. We beat out Masergy and displaced the Windstream incumbent who implemented a Velo Cloud solution that was difficult to manage, had no WAN Optimization, and cloud connectivity was not at L2.
Aryaka has a dated reputation in some circles for being niche and expensive in the SD-WAN space. Seen as a premium provider for select critical locations (e.g. China connectivity). However, this deal dispels many myths by showing that Aryaka:
Traditionally viewed as a tough area for Aryaka to compete, large retailers are now one of our most successful use cases. With the ANAP SD-WAN box tying into our own network, Aryaka gives our clients better control over their environment than anyone else. Instead of struggling to manage disparate branch locations, clients can make one change across all of their branch locations at once via Aryaka’s single-pane-of-glass global orchestration.
With true quality of service in an SD-WAN environment, 24x7x365 service, and a proactive approach to engagement with Aryaka, clients simply enjoy a better overall experience.
